CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
for sustainable
production intensification
Alert No. 27 (19 January 2013)
1. The next Australian Controlled Traffic Farming Association (ACTFA) conference will be in Toowoomba, Queensland on 25-27 February 2013.
To express your interest and to be kept informed please click here and complete the brief Expression of Interest form.
Contact: Sally Brown (Email sally.brown@sallybcc.com.au)
On behalf of the ACTFA 2013 Organising Committee
www.conferenceconnections.com.au
2.
Frontiers
in Conservation Agriculture in South Asia and Beyond. International Workshop, March
26-27, 2013, Hotel Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal
Sponsored by The
University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), Local Initiatives for Biodiversity,
Research and Development (LI-BIRD), and the Institute of Agriculture and Animal
Science (IAAS). Details available at:
http://libird.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=440&Itemid=2
Deadline for paper submission - 31 January, 2013
Send your paper to [log in to unmask]
Please see the attached call for papers for more information about the
proposal requirements, programme, registration, etc. Feel free to contact [log in to unmask] if you have any further questions or
need more information.
3. Conference on Conservation Agriculture for Smallholders in Asia and Africa, Bangladesh, 8-13 December 2013
Themes for the conference are – i) Machinery: Design and development of CA-based crop establishment and herbicide spraying machinery, implements, tools for smallholders,; ii) Weed management: Suitable weed management options (chemical, mechanical, crop rotation and biological); iii) Soil, water and agronomy; iv) Commercialization: adoption and continuous improvement of CA-based technologies; and v) Policy and institutional framework for the adoption of CA.
For further information and expression of interests: Richard Bell ([log in to unmask]) or Enamul Haque ([log in to unmask])
4. 6th World Congress of Conservation Agriculture to be held June 22-26, 2014, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
The 6th World Congress of Conservation Agriculture will be held June 22-26, 2014, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. See the flyer and learn more at www.ctic.org/WCCA
Direct your inquiries to:
Karen A. Scanlon
Conservation Technology Information Center
3495 Kent Avenue, Suite J100
West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA
Tel: 765-494-2238
Fax: 765-463-4106
5. Maize-based conservation agriculture systems in Malawi: Long-term trends in productivity. By Christian Thierfelder, John L. Chisui, Mphatso Gama, Stephanie Cheesman, Zwide D. Jere, W. Trent Bunderson, Neal S. Eash, Leonard Rusinamhodzi. Field Crops Research 142 (2013) 47–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2012.11.010
6. Development of the Conservation Agriculture Equipment Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa. By B. G. Sims, C. Thierfelder, J. Kienzle, T. Friedrich, A. Kassam. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), Applied Engineering in Agriculture Vol. 28(6): 813-823 (2012)
The paper was presented at the 5th World CA Congress in Brisbane, and that version (identical text) can be downloaded from here:
ASABE members can get the Applied Engineering in Agriculture version from ASABE.
7. No-Till Farming is a Growing Practice. By John Horowitz, Robert Ebel and Kohei Ueda. A Report from the Economic Research Service. USDA Economic Information Bulletin Number 70. November 2010.
70
8. 2012 Newsletter from Rattan Lal at the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center(C-MASC) at Ohio State University. http://senr.osu.edu/cmasc/images/Winter_2012_newsletter_web.pdf
9. Time to pack away those ploughs. In: Newsletter for Disaster Risk Reduction, Agriculture and Food Security Volume 2. Issue 2. November 2012.
10. Science and Society: Conservation Agriculture. By Duane Jeffery, Correspondent, Daily Herald. October 24, 2012.
11. Ten Truths About Conservation Agriculture and Smallholder Farmers. By Howard G. Buffet. Sept. 6, 2012 issue of the journal Nature.
12. Two Wheel Tractor Newsletter January 2013. Produced by R. Jeff Esdaile, Agricultural. Consultant, Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia ([log in to unmask]).
13. Up-dated Conservation Agriculture Data Base in
AquaStat, FAO
The CA land area data base has been updated based on the feedback received from our regular sources of information and has been posted in AquaStat. The latest figures can be seen at the FAO CA-Website at (http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/6c.html).
However,
updating of the data base is an ongoing process, and anyone who would like to
provide information on the land area under CA
systems at the national level is most welcome to do anytime. Ideally, we would
appreciate receiving the CA area
information at the sub-national level, together with any relevant historical
information on adoption, cropping pattern, farm size, agro-ecology,
constraints, etc.
For the recording of area under CA, please adhere to the quantification of the CA definition on the FAO-CA website: http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/6c.html
1. Minimum Soil Disturbance: Minimum soil disturbance refers to low disturbance no-tillage and direct seeding. The disturbed area must be less than 15 cm wide or less than 25% of the cropped area (whichever is lower). There should be no periodic tillage that disturbs a greater area than the aforementioned limits. Strip tillage is allowed if the disturbed area is less than the set limits.
2. Organic soil cover: Three categories are distinguished:
30-60%, >60-90% and >90% ground cover, measured immediately after the
direct seeding operation. Area with
less than 30% cover is not considered as CA.
3. Crop rotation/association: Rotations/associations should involve
at least 3 different crops. However, repetitive wheat or maize cropping is not
an exclusion factor for the purpose of this data collection, but
rotation/association is recorded where practiced.
We would further like to stress that the database counts actual land area under annual crops with CA (permanent no-till). Area under perennial crops will be recorded separately. No-till area by crop will not be recorded to avoid double recording of the same land area.
Amir Kassam
Moderator
Plant Production and Protection Division
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Viale
delle Terme di Caracalla
00153 Rome
Italy
Tel: +39-06-5705-6375
URL: www.fao.org/ag/ca
Save and Grow
Sustainable Crop Production Intensification
---------
To subscribe to the CA-CoP-L list, send an e-mail to [log in to unmask] leaving the subject line blank and placing only the one-line message: ‘SUBSCRIBE CA-CoP-L Name Surname’ in the message part without any further text such as an address, etc.
To unsubscribe from the CA-CoP-L list, send an e-mail message to [log in to unmask] leaving the subject line blank and placing only the one-line message: 'SIGNOFF CA-CoP-L' in the message part without any further text such as a name, address, etc.
To unsubscribe from the CA-Cop-L list, click the following link:
&*TICKET_URL(CA-Cop-L,SIGNOFF);